Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-05-14
TWO IMPORTANT QUESTIONS.

'FNA
BROOKLYN, May AT the Taber-
nacle this morning, the pastor, Kew.
Dewitt Talmage, ID. d., e~xpounded
some of the Proverbs of Solomon. The
congregation sang with magnificent
effect the hymn beginning:
EARN OF the Lord. wakel wake!
Put on thy strength, the nations shake
DR.. Talmage took for his text, Acts
xix, 10:
"Many OF them also which used curious
arts brought their books to1ether, and
burned them Aefore all men and they counted
the price of them, and found it tfty thousand
pieces Of silver"
Paul had been stirring up Ephesus
with some lively sermons about the
sins of that place. Among the more
important results was the fact that the
citizens brought out their bad books,
and in a public place made a bonfire of
them. / see the people coming out
with their arms full of Ephesian Iitera-
ture, and tossing it into the DANES. |
hear an economist standing by and
saying: ''Stop this waste. Here are
seven thousand five hundred dollars
worth of books-do you propose TO
burn them all upp If YOU don't want
to read them yourselves, sell them, and
let somebody else read them" mo-
said the people, ''if these books are not
good enough for us, they are not good
enough for anybody else and we shall
stand and watch till the last leaf has
turned to ashes. They have done
US
WORLD OF harm
and they shall never do others HARM
Hear the flames crackle and roar!
Well, my friends, one Of the wants
of the cities of this country is n great
bonfire of bad books and newspapers.
We have enough fuel to make a blaze
two hundred feet high. Many of the
publishing houses would do well to
throw into the blaze their entire stock
of goods. Bring forth the insuflerable
trash, and put into the fire, and let it
be known, in the presence of God, and
angels, and men, that you are going to
rid your home of the overlapping and
underlying curse of proiligate litera
ture.
HI PRINTING-PREss
is the mightiest agency on earth for
good and for evil. The minister of the
Gospel, standing in the pulpit, has q
responsible position; but | do not think
1T is as responsible as the position of an
editor or a publisher. AT what distant
point Of time, at what far ont cy Gle OF
eternity, will cease the influence of a
Henry j. Raymond, or a Horace Gree
ley, or a James Gordon Bennett, or a
Watson Webb. or an Erasus Brooks,
or a Thomas Kinsella? Take the sim
pie statistic that our New York dailies
now have a circulation Of about eight
hundred and fifty thousand per day,
and add to it the fact that three of our
weekly periodicals have an aggregate
circulation of about one million, and
then cipher, if you can, how far up,
and how far down, and how far out,
reach the influences Of the American
printing-press. Great God, what is to
be the issue of all thisp l believe the
Lord intends the
PRINTTNG-PREss
to be the chief means for the worlds
rescue and evangelization, and ! think
that the great last battle of the world
will not be fought with swords and
guns. but with types and presses-a
purified and Gospel literature triumph
ing over, %trampling down, and crush
ing out forever that which is depraved.
The only way to overcome unclean t.
erature is by scattering abroad that
which is healthful. May God speed the
cylinders of an honest, intelligent, az
gressive, Christian printing-press.
1 have to tell you this morning that
the greatest blessing that ever came to
this nation is that Of an elevated litera-
ture, and the greatest scourge has been
that of unclean literature. This last
has its victims in all occupations and
departments. 1t has helped to till in
sane asylums, and penit,ntiaries, and
almshouses, and dens of shame. The
bodies of this infection lie in the hos
pitfalls and in the graves. while their
souls are being tossed over into a lost
eternity, an avalanche of horror and
despair!
The London plague was nothing 10
Il. That counted its victims by thous-